I finally got my car up to the point of starting up after 3 long months. So I recheck the wiring and all the hoses etc. I prime the fuel fump a couple of times to be sure taht my lines have fuel since I changed them.
Then, all excited, I go to start her up and turn the iginiton and she just turns over. I try a couple of more times. Same issue. I verify that she is getting fuel - thats fine. So the problem is spark. I try to turn her over a couple of more times - nothing. Then I smell somehting burning, look at my ignitor and poof - a ball of smoke.
Ignitor is now dead. I check it for volatge and E2, E3, E4 all have current - but E1 has nothing. Since she is dead I decide to open it up and check waht smoked. The ground was fried.
Any ideas on what caused this and what could be my start up problem? I would like to figure out why it happened before I put a new ignitor in.
What’s the story behind your wiring harness? Did it come complete with the motor? Who modified it to fit? When you installed it were you careful to to scrape off the insulation on any of the wires (getting it through the bulkhead)?
Was your igniter properly grounded?
It will be almost impossible to diagnose this without actually doing it… But I’d start with some basic testing of wires. unplug the battery, and ECU, test the wires for the igniter plug, back to the corresponding pins on the ECU plug. Check that there isn’t contiuity to ground, or between them (maybe they melted together somewhere in the harness?)
Thanks for the info Martin. The wiring was complete and the wiring done by me - so maybe that was the problem (jk).
However, Looking at it later I found that one of my ground connectors was not connected and possibly could have come into contact with a positive current. I think that may have put a positive charge on my ground signal and blown the ignitor. Hopefully nothing else has been damamged. But I won’t be able to tell until I get a new chip.
Sure you will, do the tests suggested above, that will at least give you some confidence that plugging in a new ignitor and turning stuff on isn’t going to cause another smoke show!